


The Raveled Sleeve

by SirJosephBanksFRS



Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 08:03:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirJosephBanksFRS/pseuds/SirJosephBanksFRS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Killick has a theory about Captain Aubrey's sleep problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Raveled Sleeve

Incongruous with his demeanor and his generally shrewish aspect, Jack Aubrey's steward, Preserved Killick, had something of the soul of a mother hen with just one chick to tend. On his fifth commission with the Captain and after years spent as his servant on land, Killick's attitude towards Jack Aubrey was beyond proprietary; he regarded the Captain as his responsibility and a reflection of his own industry and worth. For all his scolding and grousing, he was supremely dutiful and attentive to his Captain, indeed, so attentive that Jack sometimes felt as though he were more under the surveillance of his steward than attended by him.

Killick's attentions to his Captain had originally routinely ended once Jack had turned in for the night until near the very end of his temporary command of the _Lively_. The last five days, when Jack had taken on caring for Stephen Maturin all night following his rescue from Port Mahón, Killick's self-appointed duties now ran to virtually twenty-four hours per day, as he came in the sleeping cabin to check on the Captain twice per night as an exhausted Jack fell asleep standing up or in his elbow chair, his arm extended and hand draped on Stephen's breast as the Doctor fitfully slept in Jack's cot. Those nights, Killick had come in the sleeping cabin to find Jack also weeping in his sleep during his own post-Mahón nightmares. Gibraltar had been a blessed relief for all as Jack could lie down and sleep in the same bed with Stephen with no fear of harming his broken body and Killick and Bonden shared a room of their own and Killick could sleep all night. Killick would return first thing to the Captain's room in the morning with breakfast for them and Stephen's physic.

Years had gone by and when aboard Captain Aubrey's command, Killick had the habit of unending vigilance for his Captain's call. Much of this was the result of a near vicious tendency for eavesdropping driven by insatiable curiosity, but beyond this tendency, Killick had the hypervigilance of the mother of a sickly baby. The ship was filled with sounds at all hours of the day and night, but like a mother who can pick out the sound of her nursling rustling in his swaddling clothes in a room filled with chattering children, Killick's ear was attuned to Jack Aubrey even whilst asleep. Unlike most sailors, he was a light sleeper. He very occasionally would get up in the middle of the night and check on his Captain in the sleeping cabin after going to the head. This behavior was habituated on  _Surprise_ after Jack took on caring for Stephen twenty-four hours a day after his duel with Canning.

It was on _Surprise_ on the way out to India that Killick had first become aware of how very attuned he was to Jack Aubrey as he had awakened and rushed to the sleeping cabin to find that the Captain was in the midst of a nightmare and weeping in his sleep. No one else on board _Surprise_ had the least notion of this, for everyone below deck was dead asleep, ears cocked only for the call of beat to quarters or being awakened for their watch exclusively, as there were snorers, wheezers, and sleeptalkers galore in the swinging hammocks. Fresh air and hard physical labour made for sound sleepers. Killick nudged Jack, moved his pillow, rearranged his body to stop his cries and went back to his own cot, cursing under his breath about bloody buggers who slept as though they were already in their graves.

Mahón had happened only four months previously when they set out for India on _Surprise_ , and Killick presumed he could surmise what his Captain was dreaming about from the weeping and the muffled, "Oh, Stephen, no, oh, God, no..." Killick was no Hippocrates, but over the years, he plainly saw the correlation and direct proportionality between the Doctor's physical proximity to the Captain and the number of times he was awakened to go to the sleeping cabin. The nightmares were worse and more frequent the farther away Dr. Maturin was. They happened only very rarely when the Doctor shared the sleeping cabin and not at all under two circumstances: when the Captain locked the sleeping cabin door or when Dr. Maturin shared the Captain's cot.

It had surprised Killick not at all to find Stephen Maturin asleep in Jack Aubrey's cot with him, his balls of wax stuffed deeply into his ears, his face set in a stern frown in his sleep. Killick had attended them together in bed for many weeks after Mahón. He would never be so presumptuous as to say to either of their faces what he thought to be obvious: turnabout was fair play and after the Captain's diligent nursing of Dr. Maturin post-Mahón on _Lively_ , in Gibraltar, Portsmouth and (much later) post-Calcutta on  _Surprise_ , the Doctor could perform the relatively painless service of lying there asleep semi-crushed in the Captain’s cot so his particular friend would sleep through the night without having nightmares. Given that the Captain had saved his life in Mahón, it seemed a trivial favor. Not only was this basic measure for measure fairness for all those sleepless nights, it did not hurt that it meant that the Captain's steward might get five or more nights in a row of unbroken sleep. Killick wished the Doctor would not act in such a way as to get injured, requiring him to sleep alone in his own cot so the Captain's seventeen stone would not be crushing him and thereby ripping his sutures or pressing on his mangled limbs and broken bones. Given the extremes of Dr. Maturin's foul temper of which Killick had borne the brunt and the Doctor's capacity to take umbrage at any personal comment, no matter how innocuous or well-intentioned, Killick would never intimate an opinion nor breathe a word about his desire that Stephen Maturin sleep in Jack Aubrey's cot every bloody night, not just the occasional Saturday, so that a moiling and toiling cove might not be driven to an early grave from lack of sleep.

The only person to whom Killick had ever breathed a word of the situation was Bonden, who had been on the mission to Mahón as well, had helped care for the Doctor in Gibraltar and Portsmouth and in the aftermath experienced his own share of horrific nightmares. It was not unusual to relive a bloody engagement or some other moment of nautical horror in one's sleep, but Bonden himself understood the singularity of dreaming over and over of walking into that room and seeing Dr. Maturin's bloody and broken body and knowing what it had all meant, the unspeakable horrors inflicted on their Doctor, for all the former _Sophie's_ had viewed Stephen as collectively theirs. Killick and Bonden had taken a solemn oath to never discuss the events or the aftermath with anyone. They felt that they could at least give the Doctor that, knowing how resentful of any incursion into his privacy he was. Now their oath extended to their commander and his dreams and sleeping arrangements. They were so chary of being overheard, they would only discuss it where there was no chance of eavesdroppers listening, knowing which locations were fair and poor vantage points being one of Killick's areas of exceptional expertise.

Bonden and Killick were sent out alone in the cutter on an errand the morning of 23 August 1810 and Killick was finally at liberty to speak freely. Bonden found Killick's conversational cup overflowing.

“Ever since the Doctor has been off in _Néréide_ , I wake up and go into the sleeping cabin and he is at it again.” Killick said. "Three times I was up there each night, every two hours. Five years now, God love us.” Killick said dolefully. "Five years, no mercy from God Almighty for poor Preserved Killick; no rest for the weary. Preserved Killick can get by on five hours of sleep broken every two hours when His Honour is left all alone. He's fine for months and then it starts all over again. Not that I'm complaining." Killick said, touching the wood at his side in the cutter. "I should live with my head never touching a pillow again rather than ever be on Corbett's barky, mate."

"Killick, I have had the dreams myself in the last three months. If you had seen it there, you would have 'em too.” Bonden said, sadly. "I don't like him being on that _Néréide_ neither. He needs looking after. They don't know his ways." They silently contemplated on this thought, how badly their Doctor was in need of "managing," a skill they had both perfected over the years of unobtrusively anticipating any possible danger at sea to the most hopeless lubber yet born. "Letting" their Doctor go on _Néréide_ was like lending a precious, persnickety, accident prone chronometer to a passel of monkeys. It pained them both.

  
“Weeping in his sleep he was, poor bugger crying, "Stephen, no, oh, Stephen, God, no..." Which his nightshirt was wet with salt tears running down. I wish that he would share the cabin with the Doctor forever so I could get some bloody sleep. Why not -- the Commodore had to stay in bed or touch his shoulder for over three blessed months after Mahón to stop the doctor's screaming and his dreams and now, his honour gets wedged in that cot with the Commodore and sleeps with him so the Commodore is the one who ain’t having the nightmares. In the same cot with him, he sleeps like a babe at its mother's breast. When he locks the door and the Doctor is with him, he never has them. He locks them nightmares out. He has woke me up every night this week.” Killick said mournfully. “And then, bright and early at three bells in the morning watch sharp, it's "Killick there, where’s my damned coffee, you stone deaf Beelzebub?" I want to tell him tis in the same place my sleep went. He don't even know it happened. No idea of it at all."

  
“No man can control his dreams, no matter how brave he is awake. Poor soul. Bless them both. The Commodore should get a bigger cot so they would both fit.”

  
“He never will. They will be wedged in there like two pigs in a poke for all time. No wonder he is so out of sorts when the Doctor is gone. He was like a charge of dry powder in a hot gun that day he sent you off from _Raisonable_ to the _Wasp_ with the Doctor. That was when they started -- he stayed up all night that evening and it was the next night, crying all night long, God help me." Killick said mournfully. "On and off ever since."

"You think the Commodore ever dreams about any other action?"

"No." Killick said. "Tis always Mahón. Maybe it is happening somewhere else in the dream, but tis always the Doctor and those bloody French sods."

“Aye. You can see it on his face when he sends him over the side on one of his expeditions. No, if I live to a hundred,” Bonden said, rapping the tiller with his knuckles,”I will never forget being down at the quay, at that stinking pier and hearing the Doctor's screams at Saint Anna's before we got up there. My blood run cold. It was the worst thing I ever heard and I will never forget neither the sight of him lying there. I couldn’t really look at him, couldn’t really see him. The Commodore said that he was being tortured by them before we went and we got there and it was not like anything you could even imagine. Those fucking whoreson bastards didn’t get what was coming to ‘em. They should have been served out the way they served him." Bonden shook his head. “Sweet Jesus, the Doctor will forget it all long before Commodore Aubrey ever does.”

 

A little more than four months later, the morning after the glorious news that Jack was to carry the dispatches back to Whitehall, and “Commodore Aubrey” had reverted to “Captain Aubrey,” Jack came in to the great cabin of the _Boadicea_ and was surprised to see Stephen sitting there alone waiting for him with a distinctly disagreeable look on his face, which took Jack aback greatly, as he was in such a good humour himself. He had missed his particular friend at breakfast and assumed that he was up to composition of papers of a political nature and had not gone looking for him.

"Jack, Killick came in early this morning when we were asleep together in your cot." Stephen said. “You did not lock the door. I woke up and saw him peering at me. After he left, I got up and went back to my own cabin. That is why I did not see you before now.” Stephen did not add that this was why he had not been able to appear at breakfast, since he was seeking a completely private interview with Jack, absent Killick’s extremely sharp ears. Killick had been sent off on yet another errand so they now had privacy.  
  
"Oh, Stephen, I beg your pardon for my carelessness." Jack said, chagrined and then hoping to mollify his particular friend, he added,"You know, we have shared the cabin since we met and a bed since year one." Stephen Maturin's face became stonier still. Jack's voice dropped further and he looked beseechingly at Stephen."Old Stephen, the way we sleep has not changed, the fact that Killick comes and goes has not changed, the only change has been the intimacy between us. It is not so out of the ordinary. Killick has come in as we shared a bed for months, months and months. He has given you physic many times as you lay next to me in bed." Stephen inhaled sharply.

  
"That was entirely different. I was convalescing."

  
"Yes, brother, so it was and thus now I would suggest that Killick believes we share my cot so that I do not end up standing next to you all night in the case that you are unwell." Stephen's expression changed and not for the better. "Watch out for squalls, mate,"Jack said to himself, seeing Stephen’s face. "Goddamn my eyes, now I am under the hatches. Oh, Jack there, you are laid by the lee again." Jack thought and sighed.

  
"Unwell from what, soul?" Jack walked to the stern lockers.

  
"You were very unwell for a long time and nights were the worst times for you. Killick saw that. He saw that my presence alleviated some of your distress. I presume that he assumes the situation is similar, that occasionally, nights trouble you and you are better when we can sleep together." Stephen looked most unhappy with this explanation. Jack lowered his voice. "Stephen, I am very sorry if this is in any way an affront to you. I can understand entirely why you would feel this way. But I cannot possibly offer any other explanation of why you spend the night in my bed with me. Not why we share the cabin but why we are together in my cot."

  
"I was convalescing five years ago. Perhaps this means we need to not end up together in your cot." Stephen said coldly. Jack looked at Stephen's face.

  
"Lucifer does not hold a book, candle or bell to him for pride." Jack thought. "God help me." Jack quickly locked the cabin door and took Stephen's hand in his and spoke barely above a whisper.

  
"Would you prefer that Killick believe us to be lovers than that you needed my company at night to sleep?"

  
"You know that is not in any realm of possibility. Do not be facetious with me, Jack."

  
"Is it worth never sharing my cot on board so Killick would never draw the conclusion that you share my cot to alleviate your distress?" Stephen was silent and obviously livid. “Is it worth never sharing a bed together ever? Never at your room in the Grapes, never at any inn, never anywhere because Killick might think that you are still recovering from Port Mahón?”  
  
“Jack,” Stephen said very slowly, “this is not a matter of an indiscretion being committed, nay, encouraged, concerning my physical health, which in and of itself would be execrable. You are suggesting, if I infer correctly, that Killick be encouraged in harboring a belief which means dissemination of such a belief that my faculties are somehow less than what they should be, a perception that I can in no way possibly countenance as the surgeon on this ship, let alone as a physician with a professional reputation.”

“Oh, Stephen.” Jack said, miserably.

“Would you allow your steward to spread tales that you were inclined to nightmares that made it the case that you needed to share my bed? Would you expect that your ability to command and to function in your profession would not be diminished?”  
  
“If it were that or hang at the end of a yardarm, yes, I would.”  
  
“Tis a false dichotomy. Those are not the only two choices.” A shadow passed over Jack's face.  He appeared obviously stricken, his eyes cast in misery.

"No one who knows you would accept the idea in the least that your professional judgement is in any way compromised because of what you have suffered.” Stephen’s face went white with rage.

“"What I have suffered,” Jack? I do not wish that “what I have suffered” should be a topic of conversation amongst anyone who happens to fall in with any member of this ship’s company. I do not wish that “what I have suffered” should be a topic of conversation for anyone, anywhere.” Stephen answered in cold fury. Jack' s face became extremely pained. He turned away from Stephen and looked out the stern windows. Tears brimmed in his eyes. There was a long silence.

"My dear Stephen, I beg your pardon. I should not have you compelled to deal with such consequences for anything in the world. I am so very sorry that it was Killick who cared for you with me, given he is such an inveterate gossip. I wish that it had not been so. I was not thinking of these eventualities back on the _Lively_. Pray forgive me. I shall never share a bed with you ever again if you so wish. We shall keep the second cot slung in the sleeping cabin at all times or if you prefer not, then it will be removed entirely." Stephen was silent and watched as Jack turned away from him to hide his face and then walked to the stern lockers to look out the window so his tears would not be seen.

"Faith, I apologize. Jack, I beg your pardon." Stephen said, finally. "Jack, pray do not vex yourself so for me. Oh, Jack...” He said, seeing the tears running down and dropping from Jack’s jaw from behind, as Jack struggled against them. “My soul to the devil, Jack.” Stephen said and he walked over to embrace Jack. “Pray do not vex yourself thus for me.” Jack could say nothing as he fought his tears. “Dear joy, you are the only reason I draw breath and I am not such an ungrateful wretch as to have forgotten that fact. Pray forgive me.” Stephen said, taking both of Jack’s hands in his. “It is an unbearable grief to pain you so.” Jack still could not speak and Stephen wiped his tears away with his handkerchief. Jack stared hard out the window trying to collect himself.  
  
“Stephen, I have the utmost respect for your privacy. I feel now that I have failed you most grievously. I tried so very hard and I fear that I have failed. I apologize.” Jack could not look at Stephen. “You were so very unwell and I thought that you should be more comfortable being attended by Killick than Mr. Floris or his mate or the loblolly boy or any of the _Livelies_.”  
  
“Soul, I told you I wished to be attended by Killick. I owe a debt to Killick and I am not insensible of that fact. Jack, what happened in Port Mahón... for me, it is not like man of war wounds.There is no camaraderie or commiseration with my fellows. Should I wish to ever discuss it, I am not even at liberty to do so with anyone, save you. I should count myself lucky that Killick does not believe me a spy. Whatever did you then tell them why I was taken?"

"I said you was naturalising, that you had gone to get a prodigious rare Minorcan bird that you had been stalking for the last five years and that the French saw you skulking around after your bird and assumed you were a spy. They laughed most heartily at that, how anyone could think our Doctor a spy. Of course, they did not laugh after they saw you."Jack said soberly. "If the _Livelies_ had all been old _Sophies_ , I would not give a farthing for the life of any Frenchman we next encountered.

"Has Killick ever said anything to you?"

"Surely you know I am the last to know anything aside from his general sotto voce grumbling. Bonden was very upset when we came back from Port Mahón. God bless them, without them..."Jack could not say more. "Killick is very fond of you. I know it can be difficult to make it out, he is such a scold. As my old nurse used to say, "he that loveth, chastiseth." Jack said and he laughed until the tears ran down his face. "Forgive me, brother, I just had such a droll image of Killick dressed in the frock and pinny of my old nurse, coming after me with a switch."

 

  
A few hours later, Stephen was in his cabin when there was a knock at the door and he called, “Come in.” The door opened and standing there was Barrett Bonden

“Sir, “ Bonden said, “ I have been wanting to come to speak with you, but given how things have been, I thought I should wait until you was more at liberty.”

“I honour you for that considerate impulse, Barrett Bonden. Pray come in and close the door.” Bonden pulled the door closed behind him and took off his cap. “What ails you?”

“Sir, I am wondering if you have any physic that should help with nightmares.” Bonden said and Stephen scrutinized him as Bonden studied the floor.

“Well, that should all depend upon what type of nightmares one has. There are nightmares that are the direct effect of the humours being unbalanced or unsettled, in which case there is effective physic to treat them with perhaps a change in diet, especially the elimination of certain foods, chief among them peas, cabbage, venison, and other hard to digest meats. I can give you a bolus as well. Frequently, I have seen that certain men have distinctly unpleasant dreams after eating foods such as under-ripe fruit and nuts which seem to contribute to iliac passion which may lead to violent and painful nightmares that correlate with what are described as stabbing and shooting pains. Can you tell me about these dreams? When did they start?”  
  
“Sir, about five and a half years ago, I was involved in an expedition and I saw some very rough action.” Bonden said, looking at his hands. “I have had nightmares about it ever since, from time to time. It is like I am there all over again. Of course, I have dreamt that I was in an engagement again, but it is not like that. Tis much worse. I wake up almost petrified. I cannot breathe.”

“Did you have these nightmares at the time? Just after this expedition?”

“Yes, sir. I have had them ever since.”

“Why did you not come to me then?”

“Why, you were indisposed, sir.” Bonden said very simply. Stephen looked at him sharply, his eyes narrowing.  
  
“How frequently do you have them now?”

“Not so often, sir. Not more than twice or thrice usually in three months or so. Not as bad as others.”

“Others?”

“Well, one other, I should say. That I know of, anyway. I don’t have many shipmates left from five years ago.”

“Did your shipmate tell you about his nightmares?”

“Oh, no sir,” Bonden said, looking quite appalled and horrified with what he found to be the obvious conclusions from what he had said and looking as though he deeply regretted the entire conversation. “But maybe if you have some physic that would work for me, you could dose the other fellow too, from time to time. You would know better, sir, of course. Has no one ever asked you for it?”

“In fact, I do not believe so. I could not, of course, reveal any confidence, as I should never reveal any concerning yourself. When did you last have this nightmare?”

“Last night, sir. I have had it every night for the last three nights. That is why I am troubling you now."  
  
“First, I shall give you some physic to take every night before you retire and then you must come to me immediately, the next morning, should these dreams trouble you more, Bonden. Come back tonight and I will attend to you.”

Stephen sat thinking. Five and a half years ago, Bonden had been part of the crew of Jack’s acting command of the _Lively_. Bonden currently had only three shipmates who had been present five years ago with him on _Lively_ : Killick, Jack Aubrey and Stephen himself. Bonden had expected that another crewmember had come to discuss these traumatic nightmares from this expedition with rough action with Stephen, eliminating the possibility of him thinking it was Stephen himself. He had seemed horrified at the suggestion that he had discussed the other shipmate’s nightmares, which lead to the self-evident deduction that he had discussed them with some third party. Stephen thought he had not had to get very far in Aristotelian logic to realize the solution set was that the third party with whom Bonden had discussed the nightmares was Killick and the sufferer was obviously Jack.

“Dear God,” Stephen thought, “how could I possibly miss that which was literally under my nose?”

As the _Boadiceas_ were provisioning for their return, Stephen asked Jack if he might go out in the jolly boat with Killick alone; he had an extremely sensitive matter to discuss that he would not feel comfortable speaking of anywhere on the ship. Jack looked at him strangely and then amusedly, the idea of a confidential conversation with Killick seemed absurdly paradoxical and gave his leave, calling Killick in and saying, “The Doctor needs a confidential interview with you -- go with him in the jolly boat directly after dinner.”

 

Killick rowed eighty yards out from the ship and asked if this was far enough and Stephen assented.

“Killick, I brought you out here because I need to make a most sensitive inquiry of you about the Captain’s health.” Stephen said. “I should never have done so extraordinary a thing except that you have knowledge that I cannot, it seems, possess and I cannot obtain from him since it concerns what happens when he is asleep. I need it in order to treat him correctly for an imbalance in his humours. I prevail upon your good graces and your duty to the Captain to keep this conversation absolutely between us and no one else whatever. You understand that I never discuss the confidence of one of my patients with anyone. I will not reveal what you tell me to anyone and I expect that you not discuss it either. Do you understand?”  
  
“Yes, sir.” Killick said, mystified.  
  
“Have you noticed that the Captain has slept poorly, has had disturbed sleep or terrible or violent dreams recently?”

“Which it is, I wouldn’t exactly say violent, except for the sobbing parts.” Stephen frowned.  
  
“What can you tell me about these dreams?”

“Nothing, sir, except he talks in his sleep and he cries.”

“You mean he weeps?”

“Yes, sir.” Killick looked at him. “Sure you know this, your Honour, he has done it whilst you was in the cabin with him.” Stephen said nothing. “He can cry so for hours, which is why I have to get up and move him around. He don't stop. On a bad night, I have been up to the cabin three or four times in five hours.”  
  
“How frequently does this occur, Killick?”

“It all depends. He can sleep fine for weeks or months and then it comes back. When you was away on _Néréide_ , it was every blessed night, all night, two or three times per night. I thought I should die on my feet, sir. He has them right rare when you are in the cabin with him. Never when you share his cot with him. He can be fine for weeks or many months and then they start again.This time, it all started the night after you was out on the _Wasp_. He has hardly seen you these last four months and I thought I should collapse before the campaign was at an end. Last night was the first decent sleep I got in months."  
  
“What does he say in these dreams?” Killick’s expression was what Stephen could interpret only as embarrassment.

“Your Honour, it ain't like I'm lurking and listening at keyholes.” Killick said, defensively, “I hear him because I go inside the sleeping cabin to move him so he will stop crying. Which I do only as part of my duty. I should rather be asleep myself. I need my sleep as much as any man alive. I only come because I hear his cries."

“I understand that, Killick. What does he say?”

“He says your name, sir. He says, “Oh, Stephen, no, God no,” or “No, Stephen, no,” and he cries, that is, he weeps, sir.”

“How long has this been the case?”

 “I haven’t been with him all the time, of course, and I cannot say if he has them on land, since I am nowhere near him at night at Ashgrove and he is in bed with the Missus, but it has been off and on for five years now. Since we was on _Lively_ , sir, since Mahón. They started the night after you were brought back to the _Lively_ from Mahón.” Stephen strained to evince no reaction to this horrifying answer.

”Well I thank you, Killick.” Stephen said shortly and Killick picked up the oars and started rowing.

“Sir, which it is can you give him some physic and make him stop having them? Because I don’t know how much more getting up I can do, your Honour. I am sore worn out. Two days ago, I could scarce see straight all day long. I was falling asleep standing up.” Stephen frowned at Killick.

“Preserved Killick, you know I cannot discuss that with you, just as I should never disclose any treatment I would give you.”

“Pardon me for saying so, sir, but the Commodore sleeps like a log when you share his cot. Also when he locks the sleeping cabin door, because he’s locking them nightmares out of the room.” Stephen looked at him sharply. “Which it might be beyond my place to say so, but at least I would get my sleep, sir, and my old granny used to say you should lock the door, stop up the keyhole, put the shoes by the door with the toes touching the door and then walk to the bed backwards and that will stop any dreams from coming in.” Killick said hopefully.

“Thank you, Killick.” Stephen said, almost immediately lost in thought.

Five years. Jack had been having grief-inducing nightmares on and off for five years and Stephen had missed this fact. Stephen made a habit of stuffing wax balls in his ears so that Jack’s tremendous snores did not keep him awake all night and habitually dosed himself nightly with one hundred drops of laudanum, as he was a poor sleeper and always had been. Jack apparently rarely had these dreams if Stephen were in the cabin with him and never if they were in the same cot. Ironically, Killick assumed that Stephen was sharing a cot with Jack for Jack’s benefit, to reduce his nightmares, the completely unacceptable scenario that Stephen had suggested would make Jack incapable of effective command. The most shocking fact to Stephen was that Killick had apparently not informed anyone of this fact, discussing it only with Bonden who it appeared could take a secret to the grave if necessary and was fiercely loyal and devoted to Jack.  
  
Stephen wondered if it were possible that Jack had no waking awareness of these dreams. It certainly seemed to be the case. Stephen did not think that Jack was capable of five years of constant duplicity, of hiding anything of such a nature from Stephen. Jack had told Stephen many times over the years that when he was a child, Queeney had taken Jack into her bed many nights because of his severe nightmares following his mother's death. Stephen shook his head at the obviousness of it.  
  
Stephen had spoken to mad-doctors and other physicians who had seen cases of prolonged nighttime distress, including sleepwalking, nightmares and vivid hallucinations after horribly shocking events. His professional interest was one of the ways he dealt with the sequelae of his own experience. He recalled one colleague having told him the worst situation that any man could experience was observing and being incapable of averting the severe injury or death of a person to whom the man felt himself deeply responsible. Some were driven as mad as the woman who came home to find her house on fire with her babies inside and no way to get to them. Sure, it was more unusual in the professional sailor-warrior who, sadly, spent a lifetime seeing comrades killed before his eyes in every conceivable manner -- blown up by an exploding gun, knocked on the head by falling spars, drowned and cut down in the prime of life in every horrible way imaginable.  
  
Stephen was sensible that his rescue from Port Mahón had not fallen into this category. Jack’s extreme attachment to him, his sense of responsibility and the horror of what he had seen and done had evidently affected him far more strongly than Stephen could imagine. Bonden was apparently suffering some variation of this phenomenon and he was a very fond shipmate, no commanding officer, particular friend nor lover. The stress, too, of the entire Mauritius campaign, the extreme difficulties Jack had faced, the long odds and barely seeing Stephen had taken a toll on him that probably contributed to these horrifying dreams that were all about loss.  
  
“There is irony, the experience happened to me and my dreams are over. Jack was witness and participant in my rescue and his continue.” Stephen thought. “Sure, mine ended when I took control of the situation in my sleep, feeling Jack’s person against me. He cannot take control; he arrived after the fact. There was no cause for him, only effect, effect that was in some particulars far more perceptible to him than to me, in my debilitated condition. Remembering all the details is in some ways blessedly difficult since I had a concussion. Not so for him.”  
  
One thing was obvious to Stephen: that no good could possibly come from attempting to discuss the situation directly with Jack, who had a horror of anything associated with mental disorders. Jack’s almost violent reaction to the prospect of Stephen’s landing in La Réunion for a mere three hours spelled out clearly what was Jack was experiencing. His intense attachment to Stephen combined with the still all too fresh memory of what had happened in Port Mahón and the prospect of putting Stephen on the ground in any territory that was in French hands had apparently triggered extreme anxiety and the nightmares all over again. On top of these strong sentiments, there was Jack's commitment to duty, both his own and Stephen's; as well as a conflict between his deep seated compulsion to respect Stephen's judgment and autonomy and his terror at being helpless to save Stephen. He suffered too realizing his complete lack of ability to determine the outcome. Jack had little conscious awareness of any of these conflicts, but they were clearly wreaking havoc with him when he was asleep.  
  
Stephen’s treatment of Bonden was simple: he would give him a glass of water with ten drops of tincture of laudanum the first night and five drops of bitter paregoric, nine drops of laudanum the second night and so on until the “tincture” would be nothing but water with brandy and one drop of paregoric in it, a fairly straightforward and effective placebo. Stephen would then give Bonden a mixed bottle of water, brandy and spirits of camphor the eleventh night and tell him to use it ad libitum, ten drops in a glass of water.

But for Jack, this would not answer. Jack was not having nightmares of the past, his anxiety was rooted in the present and future and Stephen had no clear idea of how to fix it. It was unlike all the cases of all the mad-doctors with whom he had spoken, because none of them had patients who were being placed in the anxiety-provoking situation or its direct antecedent on a regular basis. That was the crux of Jack’s issue -- reliving the possibility of Mahón over and over or worse yet, the possibility of failure, the rescue that did not happen or was too late. Jack dreamt of failure in Mahón because it expressed his worst fear: failure in the future. And that was why Jack had been so wretched when Stephen was going to La Réunion. Stephen's brilliant political success on La Réunion had not been enough to speak to Jack's worst fears. Awake, he had been happy with the prospect of Stephen's success in Mauritius; asleep, his heart had been gripped with fear for Stephen's safety. Awake, reason kept him in check; asleep he was subject to terror that only Stephen's physical presence could diffuse.

 

_**7 December 1810** _

_As potted and verging on mad as McAdam himself is, he was right that medicine of the mind is far more an art than a science. In Mahón, JA underwent an assault on his heart and soul as severe as what I bodily endured, perhaps in some ways actually worse. It is five years and five months later and I unknowingly triggered this relapse first by going to Réunion and then by leaving him to go on_ Néréide. _How it grieves me that he has suffered so. I must give him what he gave me so completely and selflessly without a thought as to any consequence, without having to be told or convinced that it was the valid treatment for what ailed me.I only wonder how he will interpret this about face on my part and I pray that my company in his cot and the tincture of time shall overcome this relapse and give him back his equanimity whilst sleeping, with the blessing._

It would be an uneventful trip home in  _Boadicea_. That night, Jack was still walking on air over the news of the birth of his son and the fact that he was going home. They played a piece by Corelli with their new Chanot bows and Jack was supremely happy. They finished playing and put their instruments away. Killick had cleared their dishes and been dismissed for the night.

"As you know, soul," Stephen said, "I spoke to Killick today." Jack raised an eyebrow."Out of his duty to you, he suggests you should lock the sleeping cabin door nightly."

"Did he?" Jack said, raising an eyebrow and frowning. "And why would that be?" Jack said.

"He is verging on collapse from exhaustion, Jack. He needs to get what little sleep he may undisturbed and he is all too dutiful to you. He is compelled to check on you during the night, some nights as many as three or four times. He has slept very little in the last four months. If the door is locked, he shall stop his night-waking." Jack's eyes flashed.

"Why, that pattering, presumptuous scrub..." Jack started and Stephen interrupted him.

"No, Jack. He is too dutiful by half. He listens for you in his sleep and wakes repeatedly. He will worry less for you should you lock the sleeping cabin door nightly," Stephen said, "and in the sleeping cabin, so shall I." His eyes fixed on Jack's unblinkingly until Jack coloured. "I know of an excellent soporific that balances the humours most admirably and involves no draught nor bolus." Stephen murmured next to him. "I very much hope that you will avail yourself of it most regularly," Jack turned quite pink, "as I hope to myself, as well." Stephen said, lifting Jack's hand to his lips."Is that agreeable, joy?"

"Perfectly, Stephen." Jack said, his blue eyes sparkling and they stepped in the sleeping cabin and Jack locked the door.


End file.
